Reading… and Thinking

“Do you not know this from of old,
since man was placed on earth,
that the exulting of the wicked is short,
and the joy of the godless but for a moment?”

— Job 20:4-5 (ESV)

Job is generally considered to be the oldest book in the Bible. How fitting, that it deals with one of the oldest challenges to faith: the “problem” of suffering in the life of a believer.

The basic story is this. Job is a man declared upright and righteous by God, but there is a spirit of jealousy among the “sons of God” (believers). Although Job has done no wrong, God allows Job to suffer. Job himself grows spiritually through this experience, but the primary beneficiaries are Job’s friends. In the end, God again declares Job right, and his friends wrong, and at God’s command Job offers a sacrifice on their behalf, and only then does God accept them.

Does this sound familiar? The righteous one suffering and offering sacrifice to save those who are in the wrong. There is no question that Job is a type (foreshadowing) of Christ.

Most of the book is a dispute between Job and his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Job is upset with his suffering – he has lost everything, including the slaughter of all his children, and is on the brink of death himself from a loathsome disease. He maintains that he never abandoned his righteousness. The friends, at first gently and then more and more vehemently, declare that Job must be a horrendous sinner, or this suffering wouldn’t come upon him.

The friends are wrong. God says so, in chapter 42, verse 7: “The LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: ‘My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.’” We therefore want to exercise caution whenever quoting Job’s friends!

The verses above from chapter 20 are drawn from Zophar’s final speech, and they illustrate the fundamental error of the friends. It is simply not true that the wicked are immediately punished, or that suffering is a sure sign of sinfulness and God’s displeasure. This error has filled human thinking for thousands of years, but it’s just not true. God says so.

Many people to this day jump to the conclusion that suffering is a punishment from God. Many immediately think it of themselves when bad things happen: “God must be punishing me for something.”

A blog like this is too short to permit a full discussion of suffering. But we can point out that David, Asaph, Solomon, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah, as well as Job, lament the fact that the wicked often prosper, that judgments don’t come quickly on them, and that hardship often comes on the righteous.

Job’s friends were wrong. And we are wrong if we jump to a conclusion that we’re being punished for something when trouble comes into our life. Look at the Lord Jesus! He never did anything wrong, but it was God’s will that he suffer. “He learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8) And of course, his suffering saved us! Others, such as Job, have gone through experiences that not only shaped them, but were used by God to reach others.

When troubles come (and they come to us all), we need to avoid the error of Job’s friends. Instead, we should ask, “What is God trying to teach me?” And, “Is there someone else who might be reached, who might learn about God, because of how I react to going through this?” Our own spiritual growth, and the growth of those around us, is what God wants to see!